Linked to your point 1, the top answer - with the more votes before acceptance - usually gets even more votes. People do not bother to scroll down to the 0 recent answers at the bottom that are maybe even more relevant. Keep up the good job!
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ring0Sep 25 '10 at 15:11

Correct, especially the last statement. Also note that accepting an answer means that it is the most helpful to the OP, which is not the same as most helpful or even correct for everybody else.
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Marcel KorpelAug 30 '10 at 13:39

2

Waiting for this answer to be accepted so I can downvote it :P
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user27414Aug 30 '10 at 14:11

I agree on that - but it happens pretty often on my side... maybe it's just me :-)
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ring0Aug 30 '10 at 14:58

1

Also, an answer is accepted by whoever asked the question, which in many cases is the person who knows the least about what's going on. I've seen accepted answers that were actually wrong (and down-voted and left an explanatory comment).
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David ThornleyAug 30 '10 at 17:32

1

-1; what you say is true, but you misinterpreted what the OP meant; see @Tobias's answer.
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Pops♦Sep 15 '10 at 15:13

It's the folks who mosey along in the left lane that annoy me. (People driving while on the phone don't annoy me so much as frighten me.)
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David ThornleyAug 30 '10 at 17:33

4

@David the left lane is where they should mosey along. Perhaps you mean the fast lane? :)
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Philip PotterAug 30 '10 at 19:32

3

@Philip: Are you from one of those island countries that drives on the left side of the road? I don't know that Winston Churchill was ever as insightful as when he said "Two nations, divided by a common language."
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David ThornleyAug 31 '10 at 14:27

5

@David I'm just pointing out the importance of abstraction. FastLane can be implemented at runtime by LeftLane or RightLane :)
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Philip PotterAug 31 '10 at 15:22

3

@Philip: I'm not entirely sure any traffic problem can be solved by another layer of abstraction, though.
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David ThornleyAug 31 '10 at 19:52

Downvotes are supposed to be "annoying." If they weren't, people wouldn't pay any attention to them.

If you only received 1 or 2 upvotes before the downvote then I'm sorry to say that your answer is probably wrong, and simply got upvoted by a few people who didn't read the question or answer carefully enough and/or didn't really understand it. Because to be honest, that particular pattern of votes happens very seldom to many of us.

On the other hand, if I've posted a controversial answer to a subjective question and already received 10 or 20 upvotes, then I would expect to see a few downvotes in the mix. If you never manage to pick up a couple of haters then you're probably just boring everyone half to death.

Just because your answer got a measly 2 upvotes does not mean that it was a good answer. If you get a downvote under any circumstances then man up and check your answer for mistakes or poor writing. And if you're absolutely sure that your answer is perfect and nobody left a comment, then accept that the world isn't fair and that other people can be frivolous or even stupid.

Are you perhaps confusing "best answer", "accepted answer" and "answer with the most upvotes"?

best answer: usually subjectively judged, not measurable on SOFU

accepted answer: the answer the question poster considered the most helpful

answer with most upvotes yeah

I assume you meant the latter, you got two upvotes giving you the lead, when some downvotes changed that. This may be because you have a mistake in your answer (in which case a comment would have been adequate) in which case your answer is definitely not the best answer.

But you could also be the victim of tactical downvoting, i.e. someone else wanted another answer to get more attention (when viewing sorted by votes).

Unless you point out the an answer that was treated the way you described, there's not much for anyone here to say but speculation ("link or it didn't happen")